


in between days

by macaroonie



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pining, Pre-Serum, Requited Pining, ends well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 03:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2677349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macaroonie/pseuds/macaroonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I knew what it was and how to do it, 'course. Just didn't know it was called self abuse by church types.” He grins wide at Bucky. Of course. He’s never been innocent a day in his life, who was he kidding. <br/>He didn’t ask for them, didn’t want them, didn’t even know his subconscious had been stewing them up for a time like this, but his mind is suddenly full of inexplicable images of Steve trying it for the first time, his blush and gasps, and then maybe every time after that, in bed, in the shower – Oh God maybe that's why his showers started getting so long. Oh God.<br/>“Church types have a lot of funny ideas,” he manages. “Like against fornication! My favourite activity!”<br/>“Yeah, we all know, Buck.” Can't look at him now.<br/>“I always say, nothing wrong with having a little -”<br/>“Or even a lottle of fun, yeah, I know.”<br/>about jerkin it but then also sadness and shitty white boy angst. i'm sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in between days

They're coming back from a sermon, a grey frittered Sunday morning behind them.

 Neither of them are particularly religious (Steve more than Bucky, but still hardly devout) but if turning up once in a while can help a fella’s soul and a fella’s conscience, then sometimes you take what you can get. Plus, they’ve been known to give a hand to Steve in the past in memory of his Ma: perpetually patient, praying, pragmatic. Certainly not because of Steve, who even though he drags Bucky along, is still resentful that the walls and the words couldn’t save her and doesn’t bother to hide it.

This time he could barely keep his eyes open after a late night and he is seriously considering having a Talk with Steve about how strictly necessary going to early morning mass is in the grand scheme of things. Surely his soul is clean enough already?

He glances at Steve, looking at the grotty buildings around them, whistling with what little breath he has, probably thinking of the next design he's doing for the magazine.  
He forgets, sometimes, that Steve can’t hear his thoughts and that he isn’t saying it out loud.

“Hey,” says Steve. His face is guarded, inquisitive. It's funny how he thinks that he has a good poker face. Bucky knows from a mile off when anything's twitching in his stupid blond head.

“What's cooking in there?” He reaches over to ruffle, automatic, and just as easily Steve ducks.

Steve looks left-to-right on the deserted street, absurdly, and says in a much quieter voice, “So, about the sermon today. Well. I was wondering what 'self-abuse' is. Because Father Burke seems pretty certain about it being a sin, but he was kinda vague as well.  
“I know it's dirty, but apart from that. I thought you'd know.” he trails off with the ending left unsaid but understood: there's no-one else to ask, and Bucky, please don't make fun of me for asking.

Bucky's mind is quiet with shock. A strapping young man like Steve not knowing how to adjust the fruit bowl? Not even considering the possibility? What has he been doing since his first hard-on, a smaller and guiltier voice whispers, summoning deeply unhelpful images.  
Bucky tries to muster up a mixture of gently mocking and big brotherly concern to get the explanation over and done with as soon as possible, but when he looks down at Steve again, facial expressions largely under control, he realises his cheeks are burning to equal Steve's.  
What a pair of dolts.

He starts too loud and coughs.  
“Well, you know when you get, hard down there,” Jesus Mary and Joseph he's missed it completely and is currently stranded in Unreliable Playground Confidante territory. He sounds like a bojo.

Jerking off is sort of private, is the problem. Usually, about sex, Steve would tell him the facts. Not that he was getting any (to Bucky's genuine surprise)(and apparently not even from his right hand), but people told him stuff. A working girl even explained to Steve how to put on a rubber, to his horror and her everlasting amusement.  
It's floored him, is what it is. Despite his size, Steve usually translates the world for Bucky whether he wants it or not, and it's strange doing it the other way around.

He summons the trademark smile from some deep well within him and continues, “and you can't find a girl willing to have a good time with you, then you sort it out yourself, you know.”  
He's still looking straight ahead. Talking about this with Steve apparently transports him back six years to when he picked up his first dirty magazine: ignorant and earnest . “You got to, you got to, touch yourself. Bashing the bishop. Jerking off. You know,” he finishes desperately.  
Steve is frowning in concentration. They stop on the pavement at an unspoken signal.

“And that, shrivels you and deforms you and blinds you and all that?”  
Bucky laughs in relief. “Nah, nah, that's just what Father says to stop people having a bit of fun.”  
“You sure?”  
“Certain.” He doesn't say, look at me! Fine healthy all that and I've been abusin' for a good time now.  
 “Oh. For a second there I thought I had an explanation for all of, this,” gesturing to himself.  
“I knew what it was and how to do it, 'course. Just didn't know it was called self abuse by church types.” He grins wide at Bucky. Of course. He’s never been innocent a day in his life, who was he kidding.   
He didn’t ask for them, didn’t want them, didn’t even know his subconscious had been stewing them up for a time like this, but his mind is suddenly full of inexplicable images of Steve trying it for the first time, his blush and gasps, and then maybe every time after that, in bed, in the shower – Oh God maybe that's why his showers started getting so long. Oh God.  
“Church types have a lot of funny ideas,” he manages. “Like against fornication! My favourite activity!”  
“Yeah, we all know, Buck.” Can't look at him now.  
“I always say, nothing wrong with having a little -”  
“Or even a lottle of fun, yeah, I know.”

\---------------------------------------

Bucky's in the shower, after work, leaning into the briefly hot water without thinking, and then – this is where Steve jerks off. He looks at the grimy tiles helplessly. The water runs cold with flashes of hot.   
His hand's on his dick and he's too tired to do anything but slump and think of Steve, he admits to himself, doing the same thing. The noise of the spray covers his suddenly jerky breathing. Maybe he thinks of pretty girls, Tijuana Bibles? Or maybe he just closes his eyes and focuses on himself, his body finally doing what he wants it to do.

He gets out guiltily and fast after coming and does not look at Steve in the other tiny bed, oblivious.

\------------------------------

The problem is that before, he never thought of Steve having sex, wanting it even. It was strange, yeah, especially considering _his_ own appetite and filthy mind, but maybe that was the way things were.

 He seemed resigned to his fate as eternal bachelor and didn’t even kick a fuss like plenty of guys could have.

And now this _fucking thing_ has been dragged up he can't stop thinking about it. It’s been a whole goddamn week and Steve has almost certainly forgotten but he, he can’t forget, every time he looks at him he knows now that he _does it_ and deep in that familiar body is a want like his own.

He looks at all manner of gals but not rudely or expectantly like Bucky himself does, just, respectfully, appreciating a dress and a face like a work of art with his hands on his hips.

Bucky wonders desperately what he likes, how often, what does he think of, has he ever gone the whole way or done anything, anything at all, and just kept it quiet. He feels wild and scared, like now he's started he can't stop until something creaks to a halt, like when they went to Coney Island together and they both laughed in horror when the cars shook around the bends.

Of course he noticed before. He's not blind. He sees his hands and his sharp cheekbones all the time. But it was ok, before, because there wasn't even the whisper of a possibility.

He looks at guys too. People don’t look out for that so Steve doesn’t hide it as much but it can’t be projecting, can it, to think that it seems hungrier? He aims to bury this as soon as he discovers it but no dice.

He's got Steve in everything but this, which should be enough, right? Greedy to ask for anything more.

He's got lovely fucking hands, he thinks grimly and far too often.

They're at a bar, and when he actually growls at a guy waving fists unsteadily at Steve for daring to help his sister up from the floor, he knows he’s cracked. Steve laughs from behind him, says fondly “You're queer as hell, you know? I had it,” from the shelter of a few drinks and claps him on the back.  
Bucky gets very drunk after that. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. His hands, warm through his jacket.

He's smoking on the fire escape with Steve sketching inside, new commission from the greengrocers, a sign. Bucky won a fight last week against pretty good odds and although he spent half the money paying back the hospital for Steve's last stay, there was still enough left for a set of new pencils.  
It was a peace offering, kinda. Sort of _sorry I got beat up for money, but to be honest I'd do it again, also I like it when you take care of me_ and sort of here _you go you piece of stubborn shit for some bastard reason all I can think to spend my money on is you._  
Around half way through the packet, Steve comes out and sits next to him so the good ear's facing Bucky.  
He's wheezing from the short exertion of sofa to fire escape stairs, but his steady gaze forward dares him to mention it, to embarrass him.

Today when he got back from the store and slumped on the mattress, started to think about maybe making dinner with the shit they had left, Steve nudged him and handed him a sketch from the day.

Showed him Bucky himself leant over, tongue stuck out (he doesn't actually do that, surely?). Their mirror is broke and he has not seen himself clearly for a couple of months and even then only briefly.  
He studies it in silence. He is handsome, which he already knew distantly, from the amount of times people tell him. But Steve has noted the crinkles at the side of his eyes (good God) and the unexpected look of sincerity and concentration. He looks kind, at odds with the cockiness and bullheadedness he associates with himself.  
It's unmistakeably him, however. Maybe more him than he knows.

He looks over at Steve's nervous waiting face and says “It's really good, you punk. Must've got it from me.” which is blatantly not true but he can never say anything he means around him.

Maybe Steve sees him attentive and open all the time. All at once he remembers that the watchers are always watched in turn. He ruffles Steve's hair from its flop. He doesn't care. If anyone is going to see him like this -

The radio crackles to life at this exact shining moment of realisation and war is declared, loud and clear and sanitary, the voice overjoyed at the chance for more blood to be shed.

They look at each other at the same time and Steve is frowning with thought already. Probably Bucky should have known at that point that something awful was being planned, but it was the war, it was a big promise building from America to its many young and blood thirsty sons and who would blame him for being distracted?

On the fire escape, Bucky opens his mouth in the space between the two of them for want of something to say and comes out with “You know, I always wanted to become an engineer, or at least a mechanic. Something with machines. You know I like 'em. And I'm pretty good with maths and lines and things, but I guess now I'll have to go off to war and fight.” It comes out, an accident, like spilling a mug of coffee and now he has to clean it up or face the consequences.  
He hasn't even let himself think properly about leaving yet, but _of course_.  
He's horrified at the truth, confessed to the next building like Steve is not even there (although he is, he always is) but he can't stop now so “an' of course I'll send you back the money, you go move into a better apartment an' without me eatin' you out of house and home you can probably afford more art shit so when I'm back I expect you'll be a proper artist, how about that?”  
A pause, where he mentally chews off his own limbs in preference to taking this easy-going patronising tone that Steve hates more than almost anything else in the world.

“Bucky.” He turns. His face, he can't imagine his face, telling the truth better than his botched words ever could, pleading for Steve to just see that this is best, better.  
Steve shifts under Bucky's gaze and finally settles on exasperation, his skin pulled taut over his ridiculous cheekbones.  
He starts quietly but his voice rises with excitement as he continues: “Bucky, you're not going to fucking fight and leave me behind.”  
He begins an explanation - his job's dead end and bills are rising - but his friend does not stop -  
“-because I'm coming with you if you're going.”

He is shocked into silence. Steve must choose to take this as acceptance because he says, placating, “Look, I know I'm a little scrawny but I'll find someone to take me.”

Before he can suggest anything else horrific, he says “No?” incredulously and then “What the fuck are you thinking, no-”

  
It's going to be hard to leave him, yeah (his mind struggles thinking of it already as a certainty) and he's a bit iffy about getting shot at, but Steve there would be worse than anything. He needs to be kept safe. Stevie, coughing, lagging behind, left behind, covered in blood, pouring out of himself through gunshot wounds. It can’t happen.

“Look, I know it's dangerous, and I don't expect glory or anything, but I have to. Innocent people are oppressed and trapped and invaded and now the US has entered I need to do my part, whatever I can to help them. I talk a lot of shit about freedom but we need to stop this.”

There is no good way to delicately phrase this but Bucky doesn't give a fuck about anyone dying on the other side of the world as long as his friend isn't out there with them. From some other worried and foggy place outside of conscious thought, he realises he's shouting.

“I don't give a flying fuck - !” about anyone except you, Stevie, come on, I thought you could read me like a book like no-one else in the world read me see this I can't let you I can't, choked down, dry in his throat so only the rage comes out.

They're both panting. Steve is sitting coldly furious and drawn up as tall as possible, four feet away and simultaneously far too far. His flashing eyes say I'm not useless. Bucky fails to say in return of course you're not. You are the opposite. The most important. I can't risk you.

\--------------------------------------

The next day, he comes home with a bloody face and a handful of notes. He puts them on the kitchen counter. The angrier he gets, the better he fights. Jesus. Soon he'll be doing that for real, and with more than fists.

There's a note left under the milk in Steve's incongruously terrible handwriting. I'VE GONE OUT. WE NEED TO TALK.  
The apartment (which is a nice thing to call a cardboard box with two beds and a hotplate) always more Steve's place than his, reproaches him. The sofa creaks dangerously without Steve weighing down the other end. Where has he even gone? He shouldn't be going out with that chest, in this weather.

Thinking of him, being worried about him, it's too much. Bucky swears loud enough to attract the attention of the downstairs, takes a shower, fucks his hand to the memory of Steve angry.

He needs to tell him before he goes.             

\------------------------------------------

It becomes a week before they're together for more than ten rushed and angry minutes (sleeping in the same room doesn't count). He doesn't even _want_ to go, for fuck's sake. If there's a way that he can explain that without somehow wounding Steve's incredibly sensitive pride then maybe it'll be ok.

If he just says it, it’ll all be alright. This is a foolish and immature plan, which he knows, but hey, that hasn't stopped him in the past!

He rehearses in the empty and belligerent kitchen.  
“Steve, you fucking prick, I'm sorry. Look -” he says, and he notices suddenly that the key is working in the door and Steve is chuckling in a non-murderous way.

“What are you doing?” He's amused, if still angry. Good. He can work with this.

“Apologising, or trying to. But since you haven't been here for a week I was expressing my apologies to the wall instead of the man himself. Same thing, really, when neither of them will talk back no matter how much I bat my eyes.”

Steve sighs a little. He sees the tension in his thin back and the rings around his eyes, new for this week. Bucky is forcefully reminded of how much better Steve is than him when he says, “I'm sorry. I'm worried about you, is all. And maybe a little jealous. If I could've, I would have signed up already, you know that. Be out, fightin' as soon as I could. But I can't. It – hurts. I want to make a difference instead of painting fruit all my life.”

What he does not say in response to this is all the people who respect Steve and look up to him despite his dictionary of ailments. Who he's helped, with food, advice, money. Every single fucking bruise that was meant for someone else.  
But because he is a selfish coward, exactly how his momma raised him not to be, he says “Apology accepted!” with a grin and draws him close to feel the beat of his heart.  
He's good enough to read the longing and the gratitude in his eyes, Bucky hopes, without making him say it.

\----------------------------------------------

It's only because he's certain he'll be turned down that they sign up together. He prays to a God that should hate him for all the laws he's broken that Steve was made too short, too thin, too obviously sickly to be accepted. For his sake.  
He's right, of course, but it feels less like victory when Steve is gently turned away, humiliated but still determined, while Bucky is waved through.

\-----------------------------------------

Basic was hard. He considered himself pretty fit but that shit was knocked out of him first day. He can lift a crate but can't run ten minutes.  
And Steve not being there is a gaping hole in everything he says and does. It seems false to even pretend to have a good time with people other than Steve when at home is his better half. Which obviously he cannot say, so he keeps to himself mostly.   
Pays attention to what they're telling him, about killing efficiently with guns instead of swords, the tips on fighting dirty, staying alive.

He relays the less interesting part of this to Steve when he gets home again. He can't stop staring at him, drinking it in so he can remember every detail when he's out on the front, getting shot at.  
There's a little tension around left around his eyes, his back. Bucky's mouth runs, dirty jokes from the more experienced soldiers that make Steve double up and wheeze so he can inspect him more closely.

Only a little money spent. Not enough for what he needs to eat and what he's worth, even if he shopped smart. Definitely skinner, if that's even possible. These signs make his stomach clench at leaving him behind where there are not enough people looking after him, now his ma's gone and he's leaving too.

Worst of all, he surreptitiously asks Mrs Kopf about Steve and she says he tried to apply again and another time while he was gone. All turned down, thank god. And now this nice, pally conversation is a farce because both of them know and they're pretending not to.

In a break, where Steve pours coffee for the both of them (the nice stuff, an unspoken going away present. Everything is a going away present now) Steve openly sizes up his new posture, the muscles in his arms, and the possibly visible knowledge that he could kill a man if pressed.  
He has to, now. Time is running out. Speak now or forever hold your peace!

“I've always wondered why you couldn't get a girl,” which is enough of a non-sequitur that Steve stops mid-pour, a question in his posture.  
“I mean sure, you're small, but you're not bad to look at, and you hang around with me which should be a recommendation of good taste, right?”  
You need to make him understand, and whether he kicks you out or not it's only a month at most and you'll still send money home. He rambles on, uncomfortable as always in the face of Steve's dignified silence which could mean anything.  
The moment of truth. Christ.  
“If I was a girl, I'd take you.”  
A stony-faced Steve. He pushes desperately,  
“I'm a fella and I'd still take you.”  
Unmistakeable. He swallows the coffee, too much too hot, and hopes his face is the same as in the drawing. Sincere. Open. Get to me like you always do, he wills. You just have to know. And then?

He gets up, commits the kitchen to memory, but doesn't dare look at Steve. He's not that brave.

There is a silence which he fervently does not think through. He presses the door which his new army boot and swallows through the blood rushing through his ears.

“You know when you came home from your job at the docks after the first day, and you showed me that big cut on your arm, an',” Steve gulps, “you took off your shirt?”

He remembers all right. He was proud and wanted to say but didn't know how to _this is for you. You can be good and I can be strong and together we can make one person right._

“I thought you were beautiful, but I thought everyone was beautiful then, and then after that sermon by Burke I thought about you, every time.”

“Same,” whispers Bucky. He's still stuck on the catch in Steve's voice on _every time_.

“You're too good to me.”

“I could be better.”

God, they're so fucking stupid.


End file.
